


It Goes Without Saying

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...it’s like he made Louis itch all over, and on those days when he couldn’t get a grip on it, Louis looked like a wind-up toy. The fact that Harry did not understand any profanities that Louis would toss at him seemed to only add oil to the fire. Louis twisted his neck, spat, rolled his sleeves up and down, pulled on his worn-out sweater, shuffled his feet and appeared ready to pounce and murder the lad any moment. There was only one thing that stopped him..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Goes Without Saying

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction, intended for entertainment purposes only. I do not mean to offend or insult anyone. No characters, real or based off real people, belong to me. I am not making money off my work.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> This work has mentions of drug and alcohol use. If it bothers you, don't read. You also sort of have to read between the lines, I guess :)
> 
> Flanders is situated in the North of Belgium, Wallonia, in the South. Most people in Flanders can speak Flemish and Dutch, most people in Wallonia can speak French.

“What the fuck’s with that shirt?“ – That was the first thing Louis said when he saw him, - “And who the fuck is that?” – That was the second.

Zayn answered these questions in the order they were received. He turned and touched the lad’s collar with his index finger, then faced Louis again with a half-shrug:

“Hmf, I think it might be flannel.” – And then, - “His name is Harry. He is from Namur.”

Niall gave out a half-choke-half-chuckle. Louis made big eyes. Only Liam just spat and asked very matter-of-factly:

“You’re kidding us… right?”

“Nah, he is.” – Zayn looked at the lad and shrugged again, turning to Liam. Liam shook his head.

“Zayn, what the actual fuck?” – That was Louis again. He was looking from Zayn to the lad and back to Zayn.

“Where the fuck did you find him?” – Liam attempted to clarify Louis’ question.

“In France” – Niall laughed loudly and Zayn turned to him, - “What??”

Niall didn’t respond. He really was not talking much since he had to start crashing in Liam’s kitchen. Liam himself was crashing in his sister’s living room. His sister was crashing at her boyfriend’s.

“I met him on my trip to Paris. You know, when I went to that fashion show about three months ago? We stayed in the same hostel.”

Everybody was silent including the new lad, who was now eyeing Zayn with a shy smile.

“Oh, give me a break” – that was Louis. His arms were crossed on his chest. They were littered with jagged, artless tattoos. 

Zayn scratched his head and gave them all an embarrassed half-laugh.

“Okay” – he said finally, giving a once-over to the lad he called Harry, - “I didn’t really meet him. Or find him. More like - he found me.”

They all waited, standing in a half-circle, hands in their pockets.

“Okay, I fainted” – Zayn raised his hands, - “I fainted on the street right outside the hostel. He found me and called the ambulance. When he checked my pockets and found my ID and the hostel front door key and so determined that I was Belgian and most likely a tourist, he rode with me to the hospital.”

They waited.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, he saved my life!”

Louis grunted:

“You fainted.”

Zayn turned to him briskly: 

“Yeah and somebody else could have, you know, gone through my pockets and stolen all my money and then beaten me up and put me in the dumpster! Or just not given a damn! This is Paris we’re talking about! I bet most people would just fucking pass by and let me lay there. But he…”

“You fainted.” – Liam repeated. Louis gave him an irritated look.

Zayn looked down. They waited.

“When are you going to…” – this was Louis attempting to get through to him once again, but then he gave another sideways look to the new lad and frowned his brows, - “So what the fuck is he doing here? Shouldn’t he be burning some crepes somewhere where he doesn’t need an oven?”

Niall snickered.

“Well, I told him I would hook him up with a job here. It’s kind of hard in his hometown.”

Liam and Niall grunted in unison.

“Fucking Wallonia” – two words were about half of Niall’s daily talking ration these days.

“So he doesn’t speak any Flemish?” – Louis stated more so than asked.

“No, but I can speak Fre…”

“Does he speak any Dutch? English?”

“You don’t speak much English yourself there, Louis” – Zayn looked at him with reproach, - “I can translate for him, it’s no problem.”

Louis hissed and gave another glare to the new lad. Liam frowned and spat at the ground. Niall was silent.

Zayn gestured with his arms:

“Okay?”

This was Zayn so they all swallowed their venom. Only Louis muttered under his breath:

“Fucking flannel, my ass!”

 

 

 

 

 

Out of all four of them, Zayn was probably the least of a deadbeat. He was a free lance photographer and a good one. He still had shitty tattoos – but then, all of them did, that was how they identified with each other, - but he actually made enough money to afford a little studio just north of Brussels. Zayn had big eyes that stood out lately even more on his emaciated face. He was so slender that Liam had once said that one of these days the cool Noordzee wind will just break him in two. Nobody laughed.

Liam himself worked as a delivery boy. He delivered fish to the local fish market, so he always smelled of it, actually, both him and Niall did, since they were now living in the same house. Niall was not working anywhere. The only thing he was working on was consuming cheap rum and marijuana from a secret stash that belonged to the boyfriend of Liam’s sister. Or to the boyfriend’s parents actually. Because that was where the boyfriend was crashing. 

As for Louis, he worked on a small fishing boat. So he smelled like the sea and his fingernails were permanently black. He had a bigger vocabulary of profanities than the rest of them combined. 

According to Zayn, he got his new roommate a job in a doctor’s office – apparently the lad had some kind of education back in his shithole hometown, but as much as anyone would have expected him not to, he not only continued to stay on Zayn’s air mattress, but also to follow him everywhere, like a dog on a leash. He was the black sheep in their crowd, with his ironed khaki trousers and soft plaid shirts, matching only Niall in his taciturn demeanour, but if Niall looked at the world from under a frowned brow, Harry did it with a sheepish curiosity and a gentle apologetic smile that seemed to be permanently etched onto his face. He didn’t do drugs, get hammered and didn’t even smoke, but whatever phrases he and Zayn exchanged when the latter addressed him in French, made Zayn laugh, so soon Liam progressed to giving Harry a nod for a greeting, and Niall – to shooting him a quick look, which was a rather big step when it came to Niall. They didn’t like him, you couldn’t ask them for that, but they tolerated him. 

The only one who continued to have a problem with him even after two months, was Louis.

Louis alternated between ignoring him completely and constantly throwing him irritated glances and rude remarks. It’s like he made Louis itch all over, and on those days when he couldn’t get a grip on it, Louis looked like a wind-up toy. The fact that Harry did not understand any profanities that Louis would toss at him seemed to only add oil to the fire. Louis twisted his neck, spat, rolled his sleeves up and down, pulled on his worn-out sweater, shuffled his feet and appeared ready to pounce and murder the lad any moment. There was only one thing that stopped him. And it wasn’t even, as they stood on Louis’ dilapidated front deck facing the rabid Noordzee, hands in their pockets, heads down, that Liam quietly stated the obvious:

“It’s good that Zayn is not living alone.”

It was that Niall nodded. 

 

 

 

Harry started driving Zayn’s old car almost immediately. Now, it being five of them, they could still fit, but it became a lot more cramped. Louis hissed and grumbled about it until Zayn agreed to take the middle back seat and let Louis sit in the front. It didn’t help pacifying him much because there was nothing he could talk to Harry about, and not just because Harry did not speak any Flemish, but also, what could a clean-cut plaid shirt-wearing college grad know about the life of a fisherman?

But even this idea, of having Harry serve as their designated driver, backfired.

One night, while they were driving on a deserted highway, Louis suddenly heard the siren behind them. 

“Fuck!” – Whatever high he was still coming off of was gone in a moment, replaced by a slimy feeling of nausea.

“Keep driving, keep driving!” – he shrieked at the lad next to him, and when Harry turned to him in surprise, Louis started waiving his hands violently, - “Don’t pull over, dumb fuck, keep driving, keep driving until I tell you to stop!”

He unbuckled himself to lean into the back seat. Liam was slumped against the window, moaning quietly. He didn’t get enough that night and the down-lows seemed to hit him harder than others every time anyway. Niall was asleep, head down on his chest. Zayn looked very bad, pale like a sheet of paper, eyes bloodshot and big, mouth hanging open. Louis fished out a dirty blanket, bunched up underneath Niall’s feet, and threw it discreetly over them all.

“Close your eyes” – He yelled at them, - “Pretend that you’re asleep! Liam, shut the fuck up and close your eyes!” He moved over and shoved Zayn so that he was leaning on Liam in a bit more natural pose, - “Be quiet, we’re about to stop!”

He turned to Harry again.

“Stop! Pull over! Pull over, I’m telling you!” – Louis buckled his seatbelt and patted down his hair.

Harry must have understood the word “stop” because he did pull over immediately. The police car parked behind him. Observing an overweight policeman leisurely stroll up to their car, Louis locked his frantic glare on Harry’s terrified big eyes.

“Be quiet, you little shit, or I’ll bash your head in! You say one word and it will be your last” – He gestured to him, - “And now roll down your window!”

Harry did, hands visibly trembling. 

The officer bent down and looked inside their car:

“Good evening gentlemen, how is everyone tonight?”

“A little tired, officer, not going to lie” – Louis gave his best impression of a tired smile, - “Is there a problem?”

“Weeeelll” – The officer sighed, putting plump hands on his uniform belt, - “My instrument here shows you went above speed limit a couple times. You have to be careful when driving at night. The lighting is not very good on this road.”

“Yes, officer” – Louis agreed from the passenger seat, - “I do apologize, but this one here” – he pointed with his head to Harry, - “Really has to… pee. We’re trying our best to get home.”

The officer frowned:

“Well, can’t he just step out of the car and do it here? Nobody’s here, I reckon. That’s no reason to go above the speed limit.”

“Oh, certainly not!” – Louis agreed, pressing his lips and rolling his eyes, - “But he’s, you know, from Wallonia!”

The officer burst out in a somewhat contemptuous laugh and nodded:

“Well, then I get it. What’s up with those ones in the back?” – He pointed with his head to the back seat.

“Asleep. We’re all quite tired. We were helping our friends move all night long. They had a ton of furniture.”

“Uh-hunh” – The officer raised his eyebrow, - “And that one in the middle?”

He flashed a light at Zayn’s face and Louis cringed. Zayn’s cheeks were covered in tears and his nose was sprouting rivulets almost over his lips.

“Allergies” – Louis said immediately, - “Cat allergies. Our friends have a cat.”

“Well” – the officer leaned out of the car and Louis leaned over Harry to hear him, trying his best not to touch the curly-haired lad, - “There’s a toilet on the next exit if your friend actually needs it” – he said those last words so pointedly that Louis became certain that the officer did not believe a word that he said tonight, - “Go home. Sleep it off. Don’t do it again.”

He proceeded slowly to his car that was still flashing lights. The last thing Louis heard him mutter was: “…cking kids. They don’t pay me enough to deal with this shit” before he got in his car and wheezed off.

The expression on Louis’ face as he finally let go of the breath he was holding must have been so horrendous that Harry leaned down almost entirely onto the wheel. But Louis smacked him hard upside the head anyway.

“You dumb fuck! Do they not teach you to drive in Wallonia? Can you not read the speed signs?” – Harry kept his head down and blinked hastily, - “You could have gotten us busted, you idiot! Why the fuck did you…”

But that last sentence was interrupted with a loud moan from Zayn.

Louis immediately unbuckled himself and leaned into the backseat. Zayn had drooled all over Liam’s sleeve and his red eyes looked ready to roll out of their sockets. Louis adjusted him upright in his seat and wiped his own hand over Zayn’s face. Zayn sniffed and whimpered. A car passed by and illuminated them all for a moment. Catching a sight of Zayn’s face, Louis swallowed. Then turned back to Harry and spat out, gesturing:

“Drive!”

 

 

It took Zayn a full week to get over that weekend, but it was taking Louis a lot longer to get over that night. It would not have been so strange that Louis was not looking at Harry, but that Harry stopped looking at anyone, was a new one. Since none of the other three remembered anything that happened that evening, neither Louis, nor Harry bothered telling their pals how the two of them unloaded everyone out of the car and dragged them, one by one, into Louis’ shabby hut. Louis carried Zayn in his arms as if he was his bride and settled him into his own bed. He gingerly took off his clothes and made him drink water, most of which Zayn puked right out onto Louis himself. Louis did not say anything, just sighed and propped the pillows under Zayn’s back a little higher. Zayn whined for a few more seconds until finally falling asleep. 

Next they put Liam on the feetless couch, right over the dirty old net and all, the lad starting to snore like a tractor immediately. Niall got an old armchair with a broken armrest. The foot extension still worked, so arguably, Niall may have been better off than Liam, whose legs were hanging off the edge of the couch. Niall burped loudly, muttered something unintelligible and stuffed his face into the cushion.

Having arranged his friends, Louis got up, stretched out his back and looked around the room. Moon light was coming bright and cool through uncovered windows through which he could look out onto the tremendous Noordzee. His small room, which served like his livingroom, kitchen and bedroom, looked like a dirty old junkyard. Dust particles were floating leisurely in the moonlight.

He looked at Harry. Harry was standing awkwardly on the silver moon path, so Louis could not see his face, only the outline of his lush curly hair, his slender neck and his lanky long body. Louis wanted to snap at him but the long day took his toll. He stepped over a pile of stuff on the floor and, having opened the doors of his wardrobe, pulled out everything that he could find inside. Next he threw his big fishing jacket on a clear space on the floor and arranged all of his clothes on top of it.

“Lay here” – He told Harry but Harry continued to stand where he was.

“Come on, you… come on now!” – Louis waived at him and Harry took a tiny step forward.

“For fuck’s sake I don’t got all night to babysit you!” - Louis stepped over and grabbed him by the arm. His shirt was so soft that Louis immediately remembered the first moment he saw him, and Zayn telling him that it was flannel. It wasn’t flannel but it was very soft. 

Louis shoved him onto the pile of clothes and threw an old table cloth over him. Harry gingerly put his hand over it and continued to stare at Louis. Next, Louis got down on the bare wooden floor, folded his arms underneath his head and sighed. He could feel Harry staring at him even as he was falling asleep. 

In the morning Louis found himself covered by his old fishing jacket.

 

 

 

 

 

Louis got up to the knock on the door. He was expecting them. They were going to pick up Liam and Niall and drive back to Brussels all together. From his brief phone conversation with Liam he found out that Niall was already shaking and raging. This was not going to be an easy night.

He opened the door to find Harry standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. Zayn’s car was parked outside, motor still running.

Harry mumbled something, not looking at Louis.

“What?”

Harry mumbled again.

“The fuck do you need?”

Harry lifted his big, tired eyes and suddenly said very clearly:

“Aspirin.”

“What? What for?”

Harry pointed behind his back and said quickly:

“Zayn.”

“Fuuuck” – Louis pushed him aside to look out of his front door and into Zayn’s car. Zayn was slumped against the passenger side window, looking completely lifeless. – “Wait here.”

He didn’t expect Harry to understand so he was not surprised when Harry followed him into the toilet. He tripped over something on the floor, falling almost onto the sink, but then finally steadied himself and opened the medicine cabinet. He found a bottle of aspirin, but before closing it, turned back to Harry. He found him studying the names of the bottles.

“The fuck do you want?” – He pushed him into the chest, so Harry fell into the door behind him, opening it, falling through and slamming into the hallway wall, - “the fuck are you looking for?”

Harry shook his head, looking down.

“You think I’m giving it to him? You think I make him do it? You think it’s my fault he is this way? I make my own decisions, and he makes his, I cannot save him!” – He threw the Aspirin bottle at Harry and it hit him into the chest, - “Get your fucking pills and wait the fuck outside!”

But Harry barely moved, so Louis picked him up by the collar and shoved him into the living room. Then he grabbed his keys and shoved the lad out of his front door. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Lou?”

“No. I’m going to wait here. When you are done, just come over this way.”

“Make the idiot wait here.”

“You serious?” – Louis looked into Liam’s cold eyes, - “I can’t trust this French moron with anything! Nah, I’ll stay here and watch him so he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Liam looked at him.

“Remember the rules. Wait until everyone’s out before you leave. Don’t leave either of them behind.”

Liam blinked slowly:

“I’ll save you some. You can take it at home.”

Louis chuckled with disgust:

“That’ll be loads of fun. I wish that Zayn didn’t drag the bastard with us everywhere. Then I wouldn’t have to pet-sit him” – he sighed, - “It is what it is. How much have you got?”

“Almost two hundred.”

“Niall?”

“Not sure. Zayn’s got about four.”

Louis eyes widened in an instant:

“Don’t let him…” – Liam stopped him with a hand gesture:

“I have to go. Wait here. We’ll be back out soon.”

Louis watched him disappear into the back door of a huge Victorian building. He spat on the ground and looked at Harry.

Harry was standing slumped over and looking down. His hands were hidden in his armpits and he was shivering slightly. Louis shook his head and grunted. The only reason in the world that he would trade shooting up some coke for babysitting a Wallonian idiot is because the latter was babysitting Zayn when Louis could not be there. Louis spat out again and took out a cigarette.

 

 

 

 

 

When half-an-hour later he was still leaning against the wall and Harry still shivering in front of the door, Louis began to feel the first slimy pangs of panic. As soon as he shifted on his feet, Harry looked up to him, but meeting his eyes, immediately looked down. But that was enough for Louis to make a decision.

“I’m going in” – he said briefly and threw a cigarette butt on the floor. He stepped and put it out with his shoe, - “I’m going to search for them.”

Harry didn’t move but as soon as Louis turned and opened the door, he was trying to enter behind him. Louis stopped for a second, ready to turn around and hit him right in the mouth, but only sighed and proceeded inside. 

The first floor was deserted, by the looks of it, it was some kind of an abandoned theater. Dark paint was peeling onto a dirty floor, it smelled of urine and mold. Somewhere in the wall there was a crack, through which a streak of dirty water seeped in. Louis heard rustling and banging coming from the second floor, accessible by a farfetched winding staircase. Louis ran up, Harry in tow. 

On that floor, several doors lead into what looked like little rooms or closets. Louis pulled on a couple, they were locked. Another one was open, and he nearly took it off its hinges. Inside, he found two slumped-over young men, one with dreads, the other completely bald, one banging on the floor, the other shaking and drooling. Neither of the lads was in any condition to even notice the intruders. There were no signs of Liam, Niall or Zayn. 

Louis ran to the other end of the hallwalk and found two more doors, both were unlocked, but with only empty and broken bottles inside, dirty clothes, rotten food, and shit that Louis could not even identify. 

“Liam!” – He yelled out, - “Zayn?”

There was no answer.

He turned to run back down the staircase and almost slammed into Harry.

“For fuck’s sake!”

Finally, they were downstairs again and Louis was frantically looking around. It was dark and so nasty, that even Louis, who has seen enough shit in life to not be bothered by practically anything, hesitated to take another step. He noticed Harry go forward to one of the walls, covered with a huge piece of a dirty torn cloth. He pulled it aside.

“Toilettes!” – He shrieked and Louis turned in his direction with a cringe. Harry disappeared behind the cloth. Louis heard him rustle.

Suddenly, Louis heard a loud noise and his heart skipped a beat. It was followed by a ear-splitting shriek, and Harry burst through the toilet door, got tangled in the torn cloth and almost fell flat on the floor, continuing to shriek hysterically.

Louis mechanically leaped over to help him. As he was pulling him out of the cloth, Harry continued to scream and claw around him, like a cat, and Louis thought that for whatever reason, Harry had suddenly lost it completely, but once the latter got both hands out of the holes in the cloth, he crawled away from Louis and back into the toilets, howling like a wounded fox and screeching, ripped rag still wrapped around his legs. Louis followed his tracks through the trash-covered floor and felt his blood grow cold.

Before Harry could get there by crawling, Louis jumped over him, nearly tripping, and was standing over Zayn, pale and motionless on the dirty toilet floor. Louis didn’t feel himself scream, didn’t know if he was screaming, he only felt his hands go to Zayn’s cheeks, patting him, shaking him, trying to wake him up, but Zayn was not moving and Louis could not tell if he was breathing, maybe he did not want to know if Zayn was still breathing, but he continued shaking him until he felt Harry reach him and start pulling him by the back of his shirt. He kicked him off with his leg, but it helped him gather his wits again and he placed his face on Zayn’s.

As he imagined, Zayn was not breathing, so he tried to give him mouth-to-mouth, but he has never done that before, so the first couple of times he forgot to cover his nose, and when this did not succeed, he put his hands on his chest and tried pushing. He felt Harry pull on his shirt again, and kicked him again, shrieking profanities between trying to get Zayn to breathe. 

It amounted to nothing and he felt tears start running down his face and sat back on the floor, vision blurry, when he felt Harry grab him by the collar, just like he grabbed Harry a couple hours earlier in his house, and shove him aside. He hit the dirty wall of the toilet and watched Harry rip open Zayn’s shirt, put his hands together and start pushing so hard that Louis was afraid he would push right through Zayn’s emaciated chest like in that old “The Thing” movie and he just looked at Harry’s face in silence, his green eyes focused, brows frowned, movements precise, completely unlike his usual timid and awkward demeanor. He may have sat there and looked at him, mesmerized, for eternity, if Harry suddenly didn’t reach into his khaki trousers, pull out a cell phone and throw it to Louis. First Louis wanted to ask him, what the hell he wanted but then it hit him and he turned away. Some twenty seconds later the ambulance was already on the way to get them.

When he turned back to Harry, he found him sitting on the floor, Zayn’s head in his lap, Harry’s dusty hands cradling it, his face covered with dirty tear tracks. Louis wanted to ask him if he managed to bring him back, but then, maybe he didn’t want to know the truth, so he just told himself that Harry would not understand anyway. They sat like that until the first aid arrived.

Louis did not remember how they got to the hospital, just that the whole way he was slumped against Harry, who was also seemingly unaware of his surroundings, his eyes locked on Zayn, grey and lifeless, with tubes and monitors clamped to his body. And Louis was so damn thankful that he was not alone because it was so damn cold in the car and he did not understand anything that the first aids were saying…

They sat in the downstairs lobby in silence. After Louis had called Liam to find out what the hell happened and Liam could not manage to tie two words together, all Louis wanted to do was to slam down his phone, but his hands were shaking so bad that he barely managed to put it back into his pocket.

Harry, slumped in his chair, looked down on the floor through his clasped hands. He was roughed up and dusty, shivering off and on. His lips were moving but no sound was coming though. Louis stared at him through his tear-drowned eyes, and he wanted him to do something, maybe move or say something, but Harry was silent and oblivious. Louis looked around the lobby, doctors and nurses rushing from corner to corner, patients waiting, patients checking out, patients checking in, and he thought of Zayn, skinny and ashen, the way he saw him in the dirty toilets of an abandoned theater, and then he thought of little Zayn, way back when, when his father was still living at home and when Zayn’s mother was still alive, both of them racing around in their big plastics cars, Zayn always letting Louis win all the races. And then he thought of teenage Zayn walking back home from school, eyes suddenly going wide as someone behind them screamed: “You Pakistani trash!” and himself, running after that someone, then kicking him, kicking him until he bled… And he thought of young Zayn, who always let him borrow money and stay over, who bought him lunch and drove him around, who copied onto himself the first tattoo that Louis ever got…

It was only when he felt Harry looking at him that Louis realized that he was talking out loud. And looking into the lad’s calm tired eyes, he felt everything bubble inside him like a pool of hot lava and he could only make a choked noise and short jerky motion with his hand before this volcano exploded, but then he felt something warm and soft on his face, something that became instantly wet with his tears and realized that Harry had pulled his face into his chest, wiping his tears, hiding his eyes, shielding him from everyone and everything out to hurt him in this world…

He didn’t know how long they sat like that, but they both jumped up when they felt more so than saw or heard, Zayn’s ER doctor approaching. Louis took a step towards him.

“How is it with him?” – He asked the doctor in Flemish.

“Not terrible, all things considering. He didn’t have a heart attack like we first thought, but he had a big blood clot and several thinning out spots in his artery. He was probably born with this condition but some…” – the doctor hesitated, - “Some certain lifestyle choices had made it a bigger problem than it otherwise would have been.”

The doctor looked at him pointedly. Louis bowed down and shook his head.

“Anyway” – the doctor continued, - “He is now in an artificial coma and out of immediate danger. You also broke four of his ribs when you did CPR. But…” – He paused, then looked from Louis to Harry and back to Louis and his expression suddenly softened, - “You saved your friend’s life there, son. I don’t know how you managed it, but you brought him back. If you weren't in time and if you didn’t keep trying, he would have been gone.”

And Louis just nodded. He was vaguely aware of Harry standing completely motionless behind him.

And then the doctor was saying this and that, and weak arteries and lifestyle choices, and Zayn should be in a coma for at least a couple days, but all Louis kept picturing was the dirty toilets, and himself slumped on the floor against graffiti-covered wall, and Harry sitting on top of motionless Zayn, ripping his shirt open and placing his big hands on his chest, and then Harry now, Harry standing behind him and nodding to the doctor, even though he, Harry, should not be understanding a word that the doctor is saying, because he, Harry, is a dumb Wallonian prick who doesn’t even speak any Flemish at all…

And then they were walking out of the hospital, first Harry behind him, then, by his side, and it was morning already, and a beautiful one, with birds chirping and sun rays coming through the sticky green leaves, and Louis suddenly realized that it was already spring. And Louis thought that he cannot always notice the seasons change while working at sea, because all he had there was a strong, ruthless and violent coastal wind, that is nothing at all like the soft breeze in the city.

His hand brushed the sleeve of Harry’s plaid shirt. He didn’t notice it at all at first, it was just like the breeze and just like the sunrays, soft and faint and gentle. When it was gone, he automatically sought it out again, completely mechanical, utterly raw, uncontrolled instinct. And the third time he did it on purpose, just touched Harry’s sleeve to have this feeling again, but he really was not thinking it through, and if Harry asked him just then what the hell he was doing, he would be definitely at a loss for words, but Harry didn’t ask anything, instead, he just grabbed for his hand.

And what brought on the tears full force back into Louis’ eyes and made him lose it completely, was that Harry’s hands were even softer than his plaid shirt. And then Louis did not know anymore what he was doing, he pushed him violently in the middle of a small Brussels park, Harry stepped back, they struggled for a few moments, both out of breath and gasping for air, until Harry finally managed to secure Louis’ hands behind his back with one of his own, Louis’ strength escaping his body completely the instant he felt Harry’s lips on his own. And then Harry was holding him by his neck, leaving his other hand entangled in both ones of Louis, and Louis thought that Noordzee storms and the breeze in the park are really one and the same wind, one and the same air, at times ruthless and strong, at times gentle like feathers…

 

 

 

“They say that.”

Louis nodded, but he really had a hard time hiding his smile.

Zayn chuckled, giving him a quick once over:

“You really do look a lot better, Louis.”

“I should be telling you that.”

“You will be, soon. But I mean, you look good. Fresh. And that” – Zayn used his eyes to point to Louis’ arm, snaked underneath that of Harry, two fingers tucked into the sleeve of his grey plaid shirt, - “Looks like the two of you have finally found some common language.”

“That” – Louis let out an embarrassed laugh, looking down, and Harry turned to him, smiling, placing his other hand on top of Louis’ fingers. – “I must say, I didn’t believe you. But you were right, this lad really knows how to save lives. So” – He looked at Harry with a somewhat shy but unashamed smile, which Harry rewarded with a mischievous one of his own, - “It just kind of happened.”

And Zayn looked at them both, and Louis looked at Harry, Harry with his boisterous, honest smile, and he knew, that Harry did not understand a word of what he just said, but he knew, that Harry understood everything. Many things did not need to be said. Many things just went without saying.


End file.
